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OUR HERITAGE 

OLD SOUTH CHURCH, A. D. 1669 



OUR HERITAGE 

OLD SOUTH CHURCH, 1669-1919 



0^r{Zc^u, _ .S O^ru^i.^. ^.cA^ 



IMPRINTED FOR THE OLD SOUTH SOCIETY 
BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS 



F/3 
.0^3 it 



COPYRIGHT, I919 
BY OLD SOUTH SOCIETY 



Gift 

PubKsher 



MAK -8 i920 



THE PLIMPTON PEESS.NORWOOD-MASS'U.S.A 



OUR GOODLY HERITAGE HEREIN BRIEFLY RE- 
CORDED IS DEDICATED TO THE PRESENT AND 
PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS OF THE OLD SOUTH 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION, IN THE SERIOUS 
AND CONFIDENT HOPE THAT THEY WILL LOVE 
AND CHERISH IT, AND SOLEMNLY PLEDGE THEM- 
SELVES TO DO THEIR UTMOST TO MAKE THE 
OLD SOUTH NOT LESS A RELIGIOUS AND CIVIC 
POWER IN THE FUTURE THAN IT HAS BEEN IN 
THE CRITICAL BUT GLORIOUS DAYS IN THE PAST 



A COMMUNION ADDRESS 



A COMMUNION ADDRESS 

SOMETIMES it seems to one that the life of the spirit 
is solitary in the extreme, as when this planet at night, 
shrouded in cloud, buffeted with storm, pelted with 
hail, climbs its weary way among the infinite spaces. Again 
we become aware of the glorious fellowship in which the life 
of the spirit is lived, as when this planet, the atmosphere 
having become clear and serene at night, travels forth with 
an endless fellowship of shining worlds above, beneath^ 
round about. It is to the sense of fellowship in the life of the 
spirit that the text speaks. " Therefore, seeing we are com- 
passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.'' The social 
life in God; that is the meaning of the text; all 
souls in Him, and all souls capable, through Him, of living 
in one transcendent fellowship. 

Imagination is the bugler of the mind. One moment you 
see no army, — nothing but the barracks in the city, ap- 
parently empty, — nothing but the tents in the field, ap- 
parently silent and deserted. Listen to the notes of the bugler; 
in response, forth come the multitudes of men falling into 
line, an army coming from the invisible, in response to that 
high call. Such is the life of the soul when it is lived truly. 
Those who have been tempted as we are and have triumphed, 
those who have sinned as we have sinned, and been forgiven, 
those who have been bereaved and have found the great consola- 
tion, those who have been troubled with a thousand troubles 



Dr. Gordon's Address at the Memorial Communioii Service, 
May 4, 1919- 

[9] 



[lo] 

and have discovered a dwelling of peace ^ those who have strug- 
gled and failed, and struggled again, and won gloriously, 
are wailing for the bugler s notes to come forth a great army, 
to pour their inspiration and their love into our lives. 

How shall we know the Lord Jesus? Two thousand years 
of time separate his life from ours; how shall we know him? 
Only as imagination, guided by the material given in the 
gospels and in the New Testament, ordered, restrained, and 
sent forward in its working by fact and by experience of those 
who lived with Him, only as imagination thus working, 
legitimately, and with trustworthiness, brings, as it will 
bring, into the field of our vision the great Master, as he lived 
in Galilee, as he went from village to village, and from town 
to town in Galilee, as he spoke by the sea, from the land, and 
from the boat in which his disciples were with him, as he 
traveled and grew weary on his journey, and as he went to 
the great city where he was to die. His person, his aspect, 
his behavior, his developing character, his sublime spirit, 
the speaker, the wonderworker, the sufferer, the man who 
gave his life and who triumphed over death, — all this may 
come back a great, vivid, glorious reality, but only as we employ 
the religious imagination. Take that power away, and there 
is no more sense of Christ in us than there is in an animal by 
our side. We cannot cherish and we cannot chasten this power 
of imagination too fully in all the humanities, as well as in 
our whole faith. i 

In the second place, let me remind you of the greatness 
of the past. Science has revolutionized our modern world; 
applied science has changed the mode of our living, the mode 
of our business, of our travel, of our intercommunication, 
and of a hundred other things; and it has clothed with new 
power many professions that minister to the temporal life 
of man. For all this we are thankful, infinitely thankful; 
but this does not imply that we are bigger than they who went 
before us. Ours is largely the greatness of privilege; those 



[II 3 

who went before us had the greatness of nature; native ^ 
original^ creative power. 

The past is great, immeasurably greater than any present 
generation. We are but the front wave, breaking on the beach, 
with the great silent swell and the Almighty push of the sea 
behind it. Do not let us forget this in our delight in our own 
age, in our thankfulness that we are born when we are born 
and set to do our work in this present time; do not let us for- 
get the majesty of the past; no man can be great who ignores 
it. Do not let this church forget the seven generations that 
have gone before. Call them up in imagination; strong men 
and tender, although they could be severe; patient, high- 
bred, beautiful women; all equal to the struggle, the duty, 
and the difficulty of life, making this church a centre of the 
civilization then in the Colony and a voice of thunder and 
power in the crises through which town and Colony passed. 
Call them up as the background of your own life, and when 
you come here to worship, let it not be in your own name only 
and those of your fellow-worshippers, but in the name of the 
mighty dead. How wide, deep, rich, reverent, tender should 
our worship be, and how thrilled with the high humanities 
of the past and touched with the graces that bloomed on men 
who were like rock and on women, sad-faced but sweet, who 
ennobled the church in their day and generation. 

Finally, let this grow into a habit of our life; not one ser- 
vice in which we hold in dear, reverent memory the disciples 
of the Lord Jesus who have preceded us in the faith and fel- 
lowship of this church; let it become the habit of our mind, 
the mood of our heart, so that we shall perpetually live in the 
atmosphere of a goodly fellowship. I ask you to open the 
windows of your life, and let all the beautiful faces look in 
upon it; let the past of your own life, as it runs back into the 
mystic past of other lives, greet, elevate, chasten and ennoble 
all your days. 

Let me end as I began, with the two aspects of life so real 



[I2] 

and so completely complementary, the solitary, the inviolable 
individuality; thai life that we live alone with God, its duty, 
accountability, its suffering, its discipline, its unsharable 
existence. Then the other, the divinely ordained fellowship. 
You have often at sea, as I have, when the sun had gone down 
and the twilight was deepening into the darkness, felt the 
utter, almost insupportable, loneliness of your little ship on 
the wide, wide sea. You have gone below and thought upon 
the gloomy isolation till you got tired and sick at heart, and 
before turning in, you have gone on deck once more, to see the 
whole starry hosts out to bid you welcome and to tell you that 
the very law by which all these lights are ruled in perfect order 
is gripping your ship, holding it on its victorious way. We 
are in awful truth individual, and we are divinely joined in a 
fellowship across the contemporary world, across the whole 
breath of history and the whole sweep of the universe. We, 
with all other souls, live and move and have our being in God. 



OLD SOUTH CHURCH 

1669-1884 



At the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Service 
of the Old South Church, Dr. Gordon delivered an 
historical discourse, now rewritten by him in extended 
form. 



OLD SOUTH CHURCH 

"the memory of the just is blessed" 

Proverbs lo, 7 

HISTORY as a mighty, conscious force is 
declared in the noble words of this ancient 
Hebrew proverb. There are the souls of 
the just, worthy of human remembrance, and there 
is the just memory by which they are remembered. 
These two forces, the just who are worthy of re- 
membrance, and the just memory by which they 
are held in remembrance, are the channels of the 
chief moral and religious influences in the world. 
Without them it is difficult to see how God himself 
could obtain adequate access to the human mind; 
without them history in the highest sense would be 
impossible. 

In this mighty order of conscious history, ten- 
derly, reverently, gratefully we place the Old South 
Church today. I shall give a rapid sketch of the 
church from its founding in 1669 to the close of the 
pastorate of my immediate predecessor in 1882; 
it is a long story but a thrilling one. 

i5 



C.i6J 

I. The Founders 

HE Third Church of Boston, afterward known 
as the Old South Church, was organized in May, 
1669. That we may gain a more vivid idea of 
that far distant time let us recall that when the 
Third Church in Boston was founded Shakespeare 
had been in his grave only fifty-three years; Bacon 
forty-three years; Hugo Grotius, the Dutch states- 
man and jurist, twenty-four years; Descartes, the 
great French philosopher, nineteen years, and 
Oliver Cromwell eleven years. At that time the 
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth was only 
forty-nine years in the past; now it is nearly three 
hundred. When the Third Church of Boston was 
organized John Milton was living in London, at 
the age of sixty, with five more years of life before 
him. John Dryden was thirty-eight, John Locke 
thirty-seven, Spinoza thirty-six. Sir Isaac Newton 
twenty-six, Leibnitz twenty-three, and Daniel De 
Foe, the wizard of the world's childhood, was a 
boy of ten. Thus the immediate historic back- 
ground and the great world figures in composition 
with the vigorous men who founded this church 
make a picture of extraordinary impressiveness, a 
pictm'e, too, rich in prophecy concerning the future. 
The First Church of Boston was founded in 
i63o and for the ensuing twenty years was the only 
church in the town. In i65o, by the hearty con- 
currence of the First Church, the Second Church 



Ci7] 
was founded. These two churches were the sole 
Puritan guardians of the rehgious Ufe of the town 
for the next nineteen years, and they would have 
continued for some years longer to be the sole 
ministers to the rehgious hfe of the community had 
not a sharp and irreconcilable difference of opinion 
originated in the membership of the First Church. 

We came into existence as a church by the agency 
of a family row; a good, clean row, as we shall see. 
What was the trouble? The Rev. John Norton, 
one of the ministers of the First Church, died in 
1 663; the Rev. John Wilson, his colleague, died 
in 1667. These were eminent men; they were 
graduates of Cambridge University, England, 
thoroughly trained, cosmopolitan in mind, in cul- 
ture; they were ministers of the Anglican com- 
munion who had been driven from that communion 
for conscience' sake. They came to Boston and 
in due time were chosen the ministers of the First 
Church. 

They died, as I have said, one in i663, the other 
in 1667. The First Chiu-ch, bereaved of teacher and 
pastor, turned in search of ministers worthy of 
those whom they had lost. They speedily found 
one minister in a young man, born in 1682, the 
Rev. James Allen, who was chosen and settled, 
so far as we can discover, without difference of 
opinion. The church then fixed its eye upon a 
prominent man, the Reverend John Davenport, 
miiiister of the First Church in the colony of New 



Ci8] 
Haven. The colony had been founded by him and 
others, and for thirty years he had rendered illus- 
trious service there; he was an eminent man and 
a godly. The majority of the members of the First 
Church wanted Mr. Davenport to be their minister; 
the minority objected on three grounds. Their 
first objection was that Mr. Davenport was too 
old; he was seventy; his work was practically 
done. Why should he be invited to come to Boston 
to begin a new work when unequal to it? The 
course of events proved that thus far the dissenters 
were right, for Mr. Davenport lived only fifteen 
months after his installation as minister of the 
First Church of Boston. The second ground of 
objection was that Mr. Davenport had not been 
properly dismissed from his church in New Haven. 
The third objection was the most serious; it was 
on the question of baptism. 

Baptism is a light afi'air with us, I regret to say; 
it was a matter of the profoundest concern to 
Christians at that time, for if not absolutely 
imiversal the general belief was that Christian 
baptism was necessary to salvation. Hence the hor- 
rible doctrine, sometimes held as a logical conse- 
quence, — of the damnation of unbaptized infants. 

In regard to this quarrel about baptism, there 
are three points in the controversy. First, members 
of the church in full communion are those who have 
been baptized and who have been the subjects of 
regenerating grace, who are conscious that the 



[19] 
Holy Spirit has changed their hearts from darkness 
to hght and from enmity to God to the love of 
God; these alone are members of the chm-ch in 
full coimnmiion. It was miiversally recognized 
that members of the church in the highest sense 
of the term are those who are conscious of spiritual 
renewal, and who make that confession, with what- 
ever fears and uncertainties, as their veritable 
state of heart. About this there was no contro- 
versy. 

The children of such persons were universally 
regarded as included in the covenant of grace. 
When the parents, such as I have described, were 
dismissed, the children were dismissed with them. 
When parents, such as I have described were ad- 
mitted into fellowship in a new church by letter, 
their children were admitted with them; they were 
children of regenerated parents, and as such were 
baptized and belonged so far to the church. There 
was no difficulty about that second position; it 
was imiversally admitted. 

The trouble came with the third generation. The 
children of those children, provided they did not 
go on and experience religion, become converted, 
conscious subjects of the Holy Spirit, entering into 
full communion with the church of Christ; pro- 
vided they did not, but remained simply members 
of the church by baptism, what is to be done with 
their children? Are they to be baptized? "No," 
said the conservatives, with Mr. Davenport at their 



[20] 

head. "Yes," said the Hberal men; "these children 
are not pagan children." Here we have on our 
hands the fight. 

In anythuig that concerns family life, in any 
serious difference over the children of the church, 
there is sure to be war. No man is wild enough 
to go about and say of the babies that they are 
not good-looking; miless, indeed, he is willing to 
become one of the most unpopular of men. 

Mr. Davenport was called, the minority to the 
contrary notwithstanding. Their opposition con- 
tinuing, the First Church at length called a council 
of the ministers and messengers of four neighboring 
churches to give advice as to the treatment of its 
dissenting brethren. They met, reviewed the case 
piously, deplored the division, but advised that 
the dissenting brethren be dismissed, that they 
might found another church. 

Thereupon twenty-nine men petitioned the First 
Church for letters of dismission for themselves and 
their families, that they might unite in a new church 
fellowship, according to the advice of the council. 
A meeting of the First Church was called to con- 
sider this request. The first thing done at the meet- 
ing, after the reading of the petition, was to exclude 
the petitioners; they had no business there. Some 
of their wives remained, hoping to acquaint their 
good husbands with what took place in the meet- 
ing; but they, too, were excluded. After their with- 
drawal the Church proceeded to renew its call to 



[21] 

Mr. Davenport, and apparently no action was taken 
at that meeting on the petition of the dissenters. 

Their request for dismission was repeated several 
times, both before and after the installation of Mr. 
Davenport, but was never granted. At a meeting of 
the First Church in March, 1669, it was formally 
denied by vote, and at the same meeting the re- 
quest of the dissenting brethren for the calling of 
another council was also refused. 

"The dissenting brethren met to seek the Lord 
to direct and guide them in considering what the 
Lord called them to do in this their present distress." 
The only thing possible seemed to be to call a 
council of several churches for ad^^ce. This they 
did. This second council made three attempts to 
meet the ministers and brethren of the First Church 
in conference, but each time their overtures were 
rejected. They then ^e^-iewed the action of the 
first council, ^e^^ewed the case between the First 
Church and its dissenting brethren, and ad\-ised 
that the latter might use their Christian liberty 
to unite in another church fellowship, seceding 
from the membership of the First Church. 

The case was next re\-iewed by the magistrates. 
Seven of them expressed their approval of the for- 
mation of a new church by the dissenters. The 
Governor and five others ex-pressed disapproval. 
The Governor, by the way, and two of the five were 
members of the First Church. The dissenters won 
again on the third trial by a majority of one. 



[22] 

The matter was next taken up by the General 
Court at two sessions thereof. Here, at the session 
of 1 67 1, two years after the formation of the Third 
Church, the vindication of its friends was complete, 
a large majority voting that they should be judged 
innocent and unduly calumniated and misrepre- 
sented, although seventeen deputies dissented. 

Looking back upon it, we see that the quarrel 
was a noble one. Both were right, both wrong; 
each held a half-truth complementary to the half- 
truth held by the other. The First Church was 
absolutely right in claiming that the members of 
the church should be men and women who were 
conscious disciples of the Lord Jesus and under the 
power of a great resolve to live in thought, in feel- 
ing, in action imder the sovereignty of his Presence. 
No church can last long unless founded upon that. 
The religious life of the members of the church is 
fundamental. They must be conscious disciples of 
Jesus in intellect, in heart, in will, desirous of ever 
greater submission of their personality to his Divine 
Presence. 

That was a great contention by our mother 
church, but the next contention, that of the people 
who formed the Third Church, was equally vital. 
Christianity is a social affair; it includes the family, 
society; it is a biological force. There was the 
great truth to which those men and women bore 
witness two hundred and fifty years ago. Chris- 
tianity is a biological force, and children of Chris- 



[23] 

tian parents are bom hopeful members in the King- 
dom of God, and should never be allowed to know 
themselves as other than disciples of Jesus; dear, 
accepted sons and daughters of the Lord God 
Ahnighty. 

As I read the story I am immensely impressed 
with the stern character and the independence of 
the founders of the church. They almost lean back- 
ward, they are so independent. They remind me 
of the two Scottish Highlanders lost in a small 
boat off the West coast of Scotland. They knew 
not what to do. One stood at the outlook, and the 
other resorted to prayer, saying, "0 Lord, if you 
will only lead our httle boat out of this fog to the 
land, we shall be forever beholden unto you." 
Just then the other cried, "Stop! I see the land. 
Let us not be beholden to anybody." 

Pale and shadowy these men and women appear 
after two hundred and fifty years; but they were 
remarkable men and women. The dignity, the 
patience, the sweetness of the women, their fine 
self-control, and the heroic coinage and rugged 
integrity of the men impress one greatly. 

Thomas Thacher, the first minister of the Third 
Church, was bom in Somersetshire, England, the 
son of a vicar in the English Church. He was 
bom in 1620, and at the age of fifteen came to 
this coimtry. It has been interesting to me to note 
that the first minister of this church was an im- 
migrant, as the sixteenth minister was an immigrant. 



[24] 

I have felt happier, less lonely, since I knew it. 
Whatever contempt the intervening generations 
might have for the class to whom I belong, I could 
* shake hands with Thomas Thacher. You have all 
heard of Thacher's Island, off Cape Ann. That 
Island was named in recognition of the salvation 
from disaster of two kinsmen of Thomas Thacher's 
when the ship on which they sailed was wrecked 
in a storm off Cape Ann. Thacher's Island should 
always recall the first minister of the Third Church 
of Boston. Thomas Thacher served as minister 
to the church in Weymouth for twenty years; he 
joined the First Church of Boston in 1667. After 
the tmnult arose, he, like a wise man, asked for a 
letter of dismission to the church in Charlestown. 
He was independent of the quarrel, and when the 
Third Church was organized he was selected to be 
its first minister and was ordained in February, 
1670. He was a physician, as well as a minister. 
We cannot teU much about his preaching; we know 
that he was greatly revered. One clear and memor- 
able thing has come down to us, about this first 
minister of the Old South. He was a man greatly 
gifted in prayer. The fervor and power of his soul 
in prayer impressed everybody; he thus poured 
new life into the little community whose beloved 
leader he was for eight short years and a half. 
He died at the early age of fifty-eight. An in- 
ventory of his estate was taken and you will be 
interested to note two items in that inventory; 



[25] 

he left a slave maid and a slave young man — as 
parts of his estate. What a strange thing it is to us, 
living today, to think of a minister of Christ owning 
slaves! What a strangely affecting glimpse that is 
into a social order that has happily passed away! 

Many of you have been in Westminster Abbey; 
you have spent hours and days in that mausoleum 
of the great dead of a thousand years of English 
history; you have wandered about and read the 
inscriptions, one after the other; you have said 
that without knowledge, without sympathy, with- 
out historical imagination those inscriptions are as 
blank and dumb as the hieroglyphics written on 
Egyptian tombs, obeUsks and pyramids; that with 
knowledge, sympathy, historical imagination you 
can reiise the dead through a thousand years, put 
them in their environments, see them at their 
separate tasks and all together working, the great 
generations and the generations of the great in 
succession, till they have evolved the richness and 
power and hope of the British empire of today. 

The chm-ch register of the Old South Church is a 
mere blank hieroglyph if we come to it without 
knowledge, without sympathy, without piety, with- 
out the gift of historic imagination ; but if we come 
with these faculties the dead live again; we see the 
Founders at their task, manfully performing it, 
building for us and for all generations that have 
intervened between them and us. As we behold 
them, our minds are filled with admiration and 



[26] 

reverence. They builded better than they knew; 
they founded better than they knew; they so 
founded that what they founded has existed for 
two hundred and fifty years. And with similar 
faith, similar love and similar devotion we can 
help to make the church they founded two hundred 
and fifty years ago prophetic of a life in the future 
for a thousand years. 



s 



II. Colonial Leaders 



AMUEL WILLARD, altogether the greatest 
minister of the church throughout the Colonial 
period, was born in i64o, graduated from Harvard 
College in 1669, became minister of the church in 
1678, and until his death in 1707, a period of twenty- 
nine years and five months, was an acknowledged 
leader throughout New England. In 1701 he be- 
came vice-president of Harvard College and served 
in that office until his death, declining to be made 
president because he would, in that case, have been 
obliged to leave his parish and take up his resi- 
dence in Cambridge. Twenty months before he 
died he baptized one of the most gifted and famous 
of American statesmen, Benjamin Franklin. This 
quivering little mass of flesh hardly a day old was 
carried across the wintry street on the 6th day of 
January, 1706, to be baptized by Samuel Willard, 
the parents evidently thinking that the mid-winter 
climate here was less to be dreaded than the torrid 
climate in the other world. 



[^7] 
Samuel Willard was preacher, lecturer, adminis- 
trator, and in every f miction uncommon; he was 
leading citizen as well as leading minister. For 
the last nineteen years of his life he gave a monthly 
lecture to which not only the thoughtful people 
about here came, but students of divinity and 
thoughtful persons from all parts of New England. 
Twenty years after his death these lectures were 
published in a volume which it is an athletic feat 
to lift and carry. For many years this book was 
one of the chief sornces of nourishment for the 
theological student. I advise you to examine it, 
and consider the nourishment upon which students 
and others were fed to support them in their faith 
in those days. 

There are three striking, dramatic incidents in 
the ministry of Samuel Willard. The first is the 
reconcihation of the mother church and the Third 
Church. Again and again the Third Church had 
taken steps toward a reconcihation with the First 
or mother church; each advance had been repelled 
with indignity; I do not think I state it too strongly 
when I say with insult. Probably a few of the more 
bitter had died in the thirteen years. At any rate, 
in 1682, thirteen years after the division, a move 
was made by the First Church toward a reconciha- 
tion. A vote of the First Church was sent by Rev. 
James Allen, the minister, to the Rev. Samuel 
Willard. This was entertained most cordially by 
Mr. Willard, who wrote in return saying that 



[28] 

nothing would please him more than to bring about 
a complete reconciliation of their differences. The 
note in reply to this from the First Church is a 
model of penitence and Christian manliness: 

Honoured, Worshipfull, Reverend, Beloved in the Lord 

We have received your return by the worshipfull 
Mr. John Hull, esqr., and the reverend Mr. Samuel 
WiUard to our motion to hear, wherein you express your 
thankful reception and full concurrence with the con- 
dition of accommodation therein mentioned, which we 
declare to be acceptable to us. And, wherein our sinful 
infirmities have been grievous to you or any of your 
church, we mutually ask forgiveness of God and you. 
And desire all offences we judge have been given us, may 
be forgiven and forgotten, desiring to forgive others 
even as we believe God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us. 
And we further entreat that both our motion and your 
return and this conclusion may be recorded with you, 
as it shaU be with us, in memory of a happy issue of our 
uncomfortable dispute and the way of our peace. 

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the 
sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you 
perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you 
that which is most well pleasing in his sight. 
So pray, 

Honoured, Reverend, Beloved: 
your brethren in the feiith and 
fellowship of the gospel, 

James Allen, 
John Wiswall, 
with the full and unanimous consent of the brethren. 

Surely this isj3eautiful. It is good to fight when 
you have a good cause and good to win; it is sore 



[29] 

to be defeated when you have a bad cause ; but 
better still, when the fight is over, for both sides 
to get together as brethren. Think what an ex- 
hibition of this we have had in our own country. 
When I came to this country in 187 1 the gulf 
between the North and the South was deep and 
almost impassable. The gulf has not only been 
bridged, it has been drained and filled up. There 
is something to be said for the position of the 
Southern lady, by whose side one of our historians 
sat at dinner recently and who when asked if she 
were interested in history, replied, "No, I want to 
let bygones be bygones!" 

The second dramatic incident in the life of the 
Third Church refers to the coming of Governor 
Andros from England with a warrant to secure 
equal ecclesiastical rights for Episcopalians in the 
town of Boston. That soimds fair until you recall 
the fact that there were no equal rights in England 
for anybody but Episcopalians; that the two 
ablest Puritan ministers, John Howe and Richard 
Baxter, were sacrificed because they were apostles 
of Jesus and freedom. Andros called together the 
ministers of the town of Boston and told them that 
they must build a chapel for the Anglicans. A 
modest request, surely. You note the faces of the 
ministers with a considerable frown on them. The 
second request was still more interesting: "You 
must pay the salary of the minister of the Anglican 
chapel." The frown deepens. The third request 



•[3o] 
was still more appalling: it was not a request, it 
was an ultimatum. The Governor requisitions the 
meetinghouse of the Old South for the Anglicans till 
such time as they shall have a chapel of their own; 
the meetings must be held at a time to suit him, and 
the ministers of the church under requisition must 
arrange their devotions in the odd hours of the day. 
Mr. Willard and his men protested at each step, in 
the most vigorous and manly fashion. They told the 
Governor that their meetinghouse was their own 
property. The Governor told them in reply that 
he owned the patents of the Colony and vacated 
them all by a word, and that all the meeting- 
houses in the Colony belonged to him. 

Three years of this sort of thing stirred the free 
men of Boston. They appointed a committee of 
public safety, and arrested the Governor and some 
of his men and threw them into jail. For this they 
undoubtedly would have suffered capital pimish- 
ment had not a revolution occurred, had not 
James II fled to France, had not WiUiam and Mary 
ascended the throne in his stead. This commit- 
tee of public safety took Governor Andros, put 
him on board a ship, and sent him home as an im- 
desirable citizen. A cleaner, finer, manlier deed 
has never been done in the history of Boston than 
that; and Samuel WiUard and his men were in it 
for all they were worth. Examples they are of 
the kind of men who cared for the Old South Church 
in that day. 



[3r] 

The third dramatic incident refers to a sea fight. 
A piratical vessel under command of one Captain 
Pomids raided the vessels on our coast and tem- 
porarily destroyed the commerce of the town of 
Boston. Captain Pease with his Lieutenant, mem- 
bers of Mr. Willard's congregation, got together a 
crew, armed a sloop and set forth to find the robber. 
They found the vessel in Vineyard Sound. After 
a bloody fight, they captured the vessel and re- 
turned with their prize; and all the ways of the 
sea leading into Boston were made safe and calm. 
Captam Pease lost his life in the fight. Tender and 
impressive must have been the service in the Old 
South Church the following Sunday when a collec- 
tion was taken m aid of the widow and four father- 
less children of the heroic man, and also for the 
families of the other men who had lost their lives 
in maintaining the freedom of the sea. 

Samuel Willard was an uncommon man; he was 
great as a teacher, administrator and as an influence; 
he was perhaps the strongest intellectual and moral 
force in the New England of his time. There is a 
good story that shows that Mr. Willard had a 
happy sense of humor. He had a son-in-law who 
was a minister; an excellent writer, but, it would 
seem, not a very good speaker. Mr. WUlard ex- 
changed pulpits with him one morning. The outcry 
against the sermon of the son-in-law was fierce. 
It was the poorest sermon they had heard time out 
of mind; they begged him never to exchange with 



[32] 

that man again, even if he was his son-in-law. 
Mr. Willard, like a wise man, took his discipline in 
patience and calmness. Two years passed; he 
borrowed of his son-in-law that same sermon and 
preached it to that same congregation, who, like 
many another congregation since his day, had for- 
gotten all about the sermon. The chorus of praise 
was tremendous. Mr. Willard had never exceeded 
that effort; they begged a copy of the sermon to 
print for public circulation. "He that hath ears 
to hear, let him hear." 

The most famous layman of this period, and a 
great leader, was Judge Sewall. He, like so many 
of the early men, was an immigrant. The Judge 
was born at Horton, England, in 1662; he came to 
this country with his parents in 1661; they settled 
at Newbury. He was graduated from Harvard 
College in 1671 and united with the Old South 
Church in 1677 at the age of twenty-five. He married 
a daughter of a foimder of the church, John Hull, 
and came into possession of a very considerable 
fortune. He became Magistrate in i684; Councillor 
1692; Judge of Superior Court in 1692; the last 
ten years of his judgeship he was Chief Justice. 
In addition he was a judge of probate and had 
access to the wills of his friends, which also became 
an item in his after experience. 

His first wife and he lived together nearly forty- 
two years. They had fourteen children. The 
second wife lived only seven months; the third 



[33] 
wife was a Newton lady. The Judge was good- 
looking; he was a social force in the new com- 
munity; he was welcomed everywhere euid went 
everywhere, was a good talker and he had a good 
memory. He was the first to protest against African 
slavery; he wrote a noble pamphlet on the selling 
of Joseph by his brethren; he was one of the first 
voices in what became one of the noblest sym- 
phonies in our whole history. Samuel Sewall was 
a compound, a mixture of goodness and gossip; 
of justice and utter triviality, of straightforward 
living and skilful economic diplomacy. He was a 
great influence, a good influence, but a mixed in- 
fluence. He is best known to you through his con- 
nection with the witchcraft craze. Here, however, 
only thirty-two people lost their lives in that panic 
and craze, whereas in Great Britain thirty thou- 
sand died, in France seventy-five thousand, in 
Germany one hundred thousand, and a proportion- 
ate nmnber in Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, and Spain. 
I repeat that New England had a loss of only thirty- 
two lives; and yet every scribbler on freedom refers 
to the horrible persecution and the miscEuriage of 
justice here, and says nothing about what happened 
in the rest of the world. Judge SewaU, you recaU, 
after condemning these poor deluded souls to be 
hanged, repented and wrote a confession of his 
guilt and a prayer for forgiveness, to be read be- 
fore his fellow-Christians. He stood with bowed 
head in the Meetinghouse while the confession was 



[34] 

being read. The Chief Justice took a different 
view. He said, "When I condemned those people 
I beheved that I was doing right, and a judge must 
always do what he considers right at the time." 
Here you have both sides. 

Two men fittingly bring us to the close of the 
Colonial period. Dr. Joseph Sewall and Thomas 
Prince. Joseph Sewall was the fourth minister 
of the Church. He was graduated from Harvard 
College in the class of 1707, at the age of nineteen; 
he became colleague to Mr. Pemberton, an ex- 
cellent scholar and an eloquent preacher, in 1718, 
and was for seventeen years his father's minister. 
One can imagine how deep a joy it was to the old 
Judge to sit for seventeen years under the preaching 
of his beloved son. Mr. Sewall received the degree 
of Doctor of Divinity from Glasgow University. 
He contributed a fund to that University, after he 
received his degree, not before, in the interest of 
poor students; the Old South Church through that 
minister is connected with Glasgow University and 
the education in all these generations of worthy, 
poor students. Dr. Sewall was chosen President of 
Harvard College; he declined in the interest of his 
own church. He was in no way a great man, but 
he was good-looking, he was worthy, he was benev- 
olent in feeling and in action, he was serene in 
spirit, and for nearly fifty-six years he was the 
minister of the Old South Church. He holds the 
record for length of service, and I think is likely to 



[35] 
hold it for many years to come. We have many 
chm'ch, records in his handwriting; they are models 
of neatness and accm-acy; the character of the man 
is in his penmanship. His colleague, Thomas 
Prince, was born a year earlier but graduated in 
the same class. 

They were classmates, and became colleagues in 
1 718, and for forty years they toiled together side 
by side. They differed in opinion often, but always 
with good will. Each kept a journal and both 
journals reveal nothing but noble men, devoted 
friends. It was a romance, that co-pastorship; 
their friendship was like that of David and Jona- 
than. Prince was a much travelled man for his 
time, saw many places, many cities, many fgunous 
men. He was a great collector of books and manu- 
scripts; where he got them I do not know, and he 
has not told whether they were borrowed and 
never returned, or bought! If he bought them all 
he must have been a wealthy man. His library 
was rich in books and manuscripts. It was stored 
in the tower of the Old South Meetinghouse, on 
the corner of Washington and Milk streets. It 
was raided by the British in the Revolution and 
many of its most valuable possessions were carried 
to England. There is httle doubt that some of these 
manuscripts are now hidden in London libraries. 
What was left was collected and finally placed 
for safekeeping in our Boston Public Library. The 
ministers and the deacons of the Old South Church 



[36] 
are the trustees for all time of that library. It is 
owned by the Old South Church, not by the Boston 
Pubhc Library; any time, by the payment of twenty- 
five hundred dollars, the Prince Library can be re- 
claimed. The history of New England could not 
be written without that library; it is precious be- 
yond words. It is the best monument to the far- 
sighted humanity of Thomas Prince. He was a 
pioneer among historians, and a man with the in- 
stincts of a scholar. He died at the age of 
seventy-one after having served this church forty 
full years, the holder of the second record in length 
of service. 

You recall the incident wrought into power and 
fire by Longfellow when the French fleet had set 
out to destroy Boston. If you think the incident 
overdrawn, remember that a President of Yale 
University said that the event was one of the pro- 
foundest causes for thanksgiving aU over New 
Englemd. Those men believed that God intervened 
to care for a civil community, founded in freedom 
and devoted to the kingdom of God. Shallow is the 
faith that does not include belief in the Almighty's 
interest and defence of the supreme causes of hu- 
manity. Here is the incident, and the prayer of 
Mr. Prince according to the poet: 



[37] 
A fleet with flags arrayed 

Sailed from the port of Brest y 
And the AdmiraVs ship displayed 

The signal: ''Steer southwest.'' 
For this Admiral D'Anville 

Had sworn by cross and crown 
To ravage with fire and steel 

Our helpless Boston Town. 

There were rumors in the street. 

In the houses there was fear 
Of the coming of the fleet, 

And the danger hovering near. 
And while from mouth to mouth 

Spread the tidings of dismay, 
I stood in the Old South, 

Saying humbly: ''Let us pray! 

Lord! we would not advise; 

But if in thy Providence 
A tempest should arise 

To drive the French Fleet hence. 
And scatter it far and wide. 

Or sink it in the sea. 
We should be satisfied. 

And thine the glory be.'' 

This was the prayer I made. 
For my soul was all on flame. 

And even as I prayed 

The answering tempest came; 



[38: 

It came with a mighty power, 
Shaking the windows and walls. 

And tolling the bell in the tower, 
As it tolls at funerals. 

The lightning suddenly 

Unsheathed its flaming sword 
And I cried: ''Stand still, and see 

The salvation of the Lord!'' 
The heavens were black with cloud, 

The sea was white with hail. 
And evermore fierce and loud 

Blew the October gale. 

The fleet it overtook. 

And the broad sails in the van 
Like the tents of Cushan shook. 

Or the curtains of Midian. 
Down on the reeling decks 

Crashed the overwhelming seas; 
Ah, never were there wrecks 

So pitiful as these! 

Like a potter s vessel broke 

The great ships of the line; 
They were carried away as a smoke. 

Or sank like lead in the brine, 
Lord! before thy path 

They vanished and ceased to be. 
When thou didst walk in wrath 

With thine horses through the sea! 



[39] 
III. The Church in the Revolution 



w. 



E come now to the most dramatic and the 
most famous part of the history of the Old South 
Church, the part that it played in the American 
Revolution. As we begin the thrilling narrative, 
so well known to most of you, we must remark 
that at this period the leadership passed from the 
minister of the church to the lawmen of the church 
and congregation. Hitherto it had been otherwise. 
There wais no layman in the town of Boston at all 
equal in power or in influence to Samuel Willard 
during his twenty-nine years of service in this 
church. Ebenezer Pemberton, Joseph Sewall, 
Thomas Prince were all genuine leaders; Judge 
Sewall was a subordinate person in comparison 
with the ministers of the church; the period on 
which we are now entering in the history of our 
church finds the reverse to be the case. 

Mr. Cumming, who died before the forces of the 
Revolution were in full command, served the church 
only about two years; he was a man of ability of 
his own kind but he left no impression upon the 
general community. Mr. Blair and Mr. Bacon 
served the church briefly, Mr. Blair for nearly 
three and Mr. Bacon a little over four years; and 
although men of ability and high character they 
did not read the signs of the times, and left no im- 
pression upon the Old South Church or the town of 
Boston. ^Ir. Hunt served the church from 1771 



[4o] 

until his death in 1776; he was greatly beloved by 
the people and sincerely mourned when he died; 
his ministry of high spirituality was often after- 
ward recalled, but he was too frail in body and 
altogether unfitted for commanding leadership in 
the stormy time which had now arrived. 

The laymen were the leaders, and chief of these 
was Samuel Adams. His father and mother were 
members of the Old South Church. His grand- 
father and grandmother had been members and 
he himself became a member in 1789 and was in 
full communion with the church for the last four- 
teen years of his life. He was born in Boston in 
1722, just one hundred years before the birth of 
General Grant. He was graduated from Harvard 
in 17/io, at the age of eighteen. It is sometimes 
said that he began the study of law to please his 
father and that he left it to please his mother. He 
entered one business enterprise after another and 
failed in them all. He took to politics and was at 
once an immense success. He was a representative 
at the General Court and became Clerk of the House. 
During his service here his work was of an ex- 
traordinary value, his correspondence with prom- 
inent persons in all parts of the Colony being 
voluminous and of vital importance. 

Adams repudiated the idea advanced by Franklin 
and others of a representation in the British Parlia- 
ment of the American Colonies. He was the author 
of the idea of the Continental Congress and was a 



C4i] 

representative in that Congress from 177^ to 1781; 
he was one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence. He won over many influential men 
to the American cause: John Hancock, the wealthy 
Boston merchant, Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the 
most upright and influential men of the time, 
Josiah Quincy, and many other valiant souls were 
won to the cause through the insight and the in- 
spiring personal leadership of Samuel Adams. 

Adams was not great as a speaker, nor as a con- 
structive statesman; in caUing out and organizing 
the latent forces of the revolution he was matchless. 
Later in life he was Lieutenant Governor, and still 
later for several years he was Governor of the 
Commonwealth. He died at the age of eighty-one, 
in i8o3. 

Passing to the church, let us see what part the 
church played in these tumultuous years. In the 
first place, on June 10, 1768, an English frigate 
arrived to enforce the new revenue laws, and seized 
a vessel belonging to John Hancock. The free men 
of Boston felt that it was an outrage that a vessel 
belonging to a citizen of Boston should be seized 
by a frigate from England. The selectmen of the 
town caUed a meeting in Faneuil HaU; Faneuil 
Hall was not big enough to hold the crowd and 
the Old South Meetinghouse was thrown open and 
packed to overflowing. 

A committee was chosen, to protest against the 
outrage to Governor Bernard, and to obtain from 



him an honorable settlement. The case was settled, 
patched up, after a while; the Governor was con- 
cessive and the patriots were conservative. That 
was their strength. They considered every step 
that they took. The settlement was fairly satis- 
factory on both sides, good enough for a beginning. 

In 1770 the King street massacre occurred. For 
seventeen months two regiments had been quartered 
in the town of Boston, to the disgust of the free 
men. More and more strained became the relations 
of the citizens and the soldiers; more frequently 
insulting words passed between them, till one day 
on King street, the people being especially aggres- 
sive, the soldiers shot down six of them. Next day, 
in the afternoon, the Old South Chm-ch was opened 
again and a crowd of 2000 men gathered, with 
Samuel Adams as their leader. He was sent to the 
Governor to ask that these regiments be removed 
from the town and quartered in Castle William. 
The Governor again was concessive, being anxious 
to avoid trouble; this time the patriots were not so 
conservative. The Governor consented to the re- 
moval of one regiment. Samuel Adams went to the 
Old South Meetinghouse and reported the Gov- 
ernor's message, saying as he delivered the report, 
"The removal of two or none!" Whereupon the 
unanimous vote was, "Both or none!" 

Mr. Adams returned to the Governor and re- 
ported the vote. The Governor sm*rendered and 
these two regiments were sent to be quartered 



[43] 
henceforth in Castle William. They were afterward 
known in Parliament by the name of "Sam Adams's 
regiments"; because wherever he wanted them to 
go, they went. Thereafter on each successive anni- 
versary of the Kjing street massacre a public com- 
memoration was held in the Old South Meeting- 
house and a noted patriotic speaker was chosen to 
express the thoughts and feelings of the free men of 
Boston. 

In 1772 Dr. Joseph Warren delivered an oration 
which stirred the town to its depths, giving an able 
account in constitutional law of the relations that 
existed between the Colonies and Great Britain 
and preaching with great eloquence his ideas of 
freedom. Dr. Joseph Warren appeared as an orator 
three years later, coming in at one of the windows 
of the church, part of his audience being composed 
of the British troops and part of Boston patriots. 

The next series of meetings held in the Old South 
Meetinghouse by the patriots was in connection 
with the famous Tea Party. You will remember 
that the first ship, Dartmouth, arrived at Boston and 
anchored below the custom house November 28, 
1778. She was not allowed to land the tea con- 
signed to this port by the East India Company, 
because the port was to be taxed when the tea was 
landed. 

The meetings began in the Old South Church on 
this date, the 28th of November, and they were con- 
tinued (and no one complained of the length of 



CM] 

time spent in the church) till the i6th of December, 
the same year. The Dartmouth was joined by the 
Eleanor and the Beaver, and these three vessels, 
anchored near Grififin's Wharf, awaited their fate. 

At the meetings held in the church three votes 
were passed unanimously: first, that the tea be 
sent back whence it came; second, that it be sent 
back with the tax unpaid; third, that it be sent 
back in the vessels that brought it. The best de- 
scription of this Tea Party extant is found in Car- 
lyle's Frederick the Great, Dr. Manning in his essay 
on Samuel Adams quotes a part of it; I think you will 
like to read the whole account: ^ 

"The Boston Tea (same day). Curious to re- 
mark, while Frederick is writing this letter 'Thurs- 
day, December i6th, 1778,' what a commotion is 
going on, far over seas, at Boston, New England, 
in the 'Old South Meetinghouse,' there in regard 
to three English Tea-Ships that are lying embargoed 
in Griffin's Wharf, for above a fortnight past. 
(The case is well known and still memorable to 
mankind.) 

"This Thm-sday, accordingly by 10 in the morn- 
ing, in the 'Old South Meetinghouse,' Boston is 
assembled and country people to the number of 
2,000; — and Rotch never was in such a company 
of human Friends before. They are not uncivil 
to him (cautious people, heedful of the verge of the 
Law) ; but they are peremptory, to the extent of — 

* Frederick the Great, Book XXI, Chapter V. 



[45] 

Rotch may shudder to think what. *I went to the 
custom house yesterday,' said Rotch, 'your Com- 
mittee of Ten can bear me witness; and demanded 
clearance and leave to depart; but they would not; 
were forbidden, they said!' *Go then, sir; get you 
to the Governor himself; a clearance, and out of 
harbour this day: hadn't you better?' Rotch is 
well aware that he had; hastens off to the Governor 
(who has vanished to his country-house, on pur- 
pose); Old South Meetinghouse adjourning until 
3 P.M., for Rotch's return with clearance. 

" At 3 o'clock no Rotch, nor at /i, nor at 5; mis- 
cellaneous plangent intermittent speech instead, 
mostly plangent, in tone sorrowful rather than in- 
dignant: — at a quarter to 6, here at length is 
Rotch; sun is long since set. — Has Rotch a clear- 
ance or not.^^ Rotch reports at large, willing to be 
questioned £md cross-questioned: * Governor ab- 
solutely would not! My Christian friends, what 
could I or can I do?' There are by this time about 
7000 people in (about) Old South Meetinghouse, 
very few tallow-lights in comparison, almost no 
lights for the mind, either, and it is difficult to 
answer. Rotch's report done, the Chairman (one 
Adams, 'American Cato,' subsequently so called) 
dissolves the sorrowful 7000 with these words: 
'This meeting declares that it can do nothing more 
to save the country.' Will merely go home, then, 
and weep. Hark, however: almost on the instant, 
in front of Old South Meetinghouse a terrific War 



C46] 

whoop and about fifty Mohawk Indians, — with 
whom Adams seems to be acquainted; and speaks 
without Interpreter : Aha ! — 

"And, sure enough, before the stroke of 7, these 
fifty painted Mohawks are forward, without noise, 
to Griffin's Wharf have put sentries all round there; 
and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are 
busy, in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea-ships; 
opening their chests, and punctually shaking them 
out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance, you 
could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests 
and no other sound.' About 10 p.m., all was finished; 
342 chests of tea flung out to infuse in the Atlantic; 
the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston 
sleeping more silently even than usual." The old 
South Meetinghouse then enacted history of world- 
wide significance. 

The next revolutionary event in which the church 
is connected is less widely known. General Gage, 
as you know, sent an expedition to Lexington in 
1775, April, to capture Samuel Adams and John 
Hancock, who were temporarily staying there; aU 
other offenders were to be forgiven; these two were 
to be executed for high treason. Of the famous 
ride of Paul Revere we all know, but the part played 
by a member of the Old South Church, equally im- 
portant, is not so well known. 

There were two messengers despatched that 
night to alarm the countryside and especially to 
warn those two great leaders to withdraw. Paul 



CA7] 

Revere went by sea; the sea course was much shorter 
and he got to Lexington first and actually warned the 
patriots. William Dawes, member of the Old South 
Church, was the other rider and he took the land 
course, with great difficulty eluding the British 
guard at the Neck; he crossed the Charles river at 
the Brighton bridge, proceeded through Cam- 
bridge and got to Lexington only a little later than 
Paul Revere. 

These two men were riding together, having done 
part of their work, when they came upon a delight- 
ful young patriot of the time. Dr. Prescott, who was 
returning from a visit to his sweetheart. Miss 
Mulliken. The three proceeded together tiQ they 
found themselves in the neighborhood of a com- 
pany of British officers. Prescott, who was the best 
moimted of the three, urged his horse and cleared 
the stone wall and escaped. The British officers 
at once gave chase to Dawes, who spurred his steed 
to its best and rode right up toward an empty farm 
house, slapping his hand on his leathern breeches 
and shouting, "Hello, boys! I've got two of them!" 
Whereupon the officers, suspecting a trap, turned 
their horses and fled! Dawes escaped, losing only 
his watch; even that was found afterwards. The 
exploit of William Dawes is just as memorable, 
just as inspiring as that of Paul Revere, but he still 
waits for a Longfellow to give lyric expression to the 
glorious exploit of that evening and the following 
day. Paul Revere was not so lucky as his two 



C48] 

friends. He rode all unconsciously into a British 
detachment and had to surrender. 

In the siege of Boston, from 1776 to 1776 there 
is no record of any meeting on the part of the Old 
South Chm-ch anywhere. The church was without 
ministers, the members were dispersed. Prac- 
tically the church appeared to be extinct. The 
Meetinghouse was desecrated in a truly infamous 
way. It must be added, however, that in times of 
war churches have been taken not infrequently for 
military uses. Other churches in the town of Boston 
were so used by the British, they were so taken and 
used in New York, but upon no church did the 
British wreak such vengeance as they did upon the 
Old South Meetinghouse. The pulpit was taken 
down and cut to pieces; the pews were taken out 
and burned; the finest pew of all. Deacon Hub- 
bard's pew, was taken and turned into a hog-pen. 
Hundreds of loads of dirt were carted into the 
church and spread upon the floor to make the riding 
safe and easy and the faU without injury, if the 
rider happened to fall. One part of the gallery was 
spared for the officers and their lady friends, and a 
bar was erected, at which liquor was sold to the 
officers and their friends. Another kind of bar was 
shot across one of the doors and the soldiers in 
their exercises cleared the bar, or tried to, and 
landed inside the church. The regiment that thus 
desecrated our former Meetinghouse was the 17th 
Light Horse Dragoons. This was an appalling 



l^9l 
sight to the good people of Boston; the soldiers 
carried their sacrilege further. The parsonage, the 
house in which John Winthrop had lived and died, 
which Samuel Willard, Ebenezer Pemberton and 
Dr. Joseph Sewall had occupied, was destroyed. 
The residence of Samuel Adams was rendered un- 
inhabitable. 

Here let me record a few episodes. The first 
goes back to 1744, when Colonel Pepperrell, nephew 
by marriage of Joseph Sewall, and Captain Gridley 
of the Old South Church, headed an expedition 
against the French in Cape Breton. Under Colonel 
Pepperrell the great fortress of Louisburg was taken. 
There are members of this church and congrega- 
tion today who are descendants of those who went 
and took part in that great expedition. This episode 
was significant in the training which it gave to 
Gridley, who afterward, as a first-class engineer, 
built the forts on Lake George, who also rendered 
admirable service at Bunker Hill and at the siege 
of Boston. 

The second episode is of a very different character 
and concerns one of the most pathetic incidents in 
our entire history. In 1761 a little slave girl of 
seven, who was kidnapped from Africa and brought 
hither, was offered, among other slaves, for sale 
in the town. Mr. and Mrs. John Wheatley went 
to look the slaves over, as you might a set of Boston 
bull terriers, to see if there happened to be any in 
the number suitable for their service. Mrs. Wheat- 



[5o] 
ley was greatly moved by this little African slave 
girl of seven years of age, and took her home in her 
carriage. Sensitive, obedient, clinging, loving and 
lovable, this child gained the confidence of the 
entire family. One of the Wheatley daughters 
taught her to read and write. In a few months she 
made amazing progress. She wrote the most beau- 
tiful of all the eulogies that were written of Dr. 
Joseph Sewall; of all the testimonials to his work, 
that of Phyllis Wheatley was thought to be the 
best. She became a member of the Old South 
Church in 1771, and when Washington took com- 
mand of the American forces, under the old elm at 
Cambridge, Phyllis Wheatley wrote a poem in his 
honor and sent him a note. Here is General Wash- 
ington's acknowledgment; what a superb gentle- 
man he was ! 

"Miss Phyllis: Your favor of the 26th of October 
did not reach my hands till the middle of December. 
Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer 
ere this. Granted. But a variety of important 
occurrences, continually interposing to distract the 
mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will 
apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the 
seeming, but not real, neglect. I thank you most 
sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant 
lines you enclosed: and however imdeserving I 
may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style 
and maimer exhibit a striking proof of your poeti- 
cal talents; in honor of which, as a tribute justly 



[5i] 

due to you, I would have published the poem had 
I not been apprehensive that, while I only meant 
to give the world this new instance of yoiu* genius, 
I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. 
This, and nothing else, determined me not to give 
it a place in the public prints. 

"If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near 
headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so 
favored by the Muses, to whom nature has been so 
liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am, 
with great respect, your obedient, humble servant, 
Geo. Washington." 

Here is a sample of Phyllis Wheatley's muse: 

'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan landy 
Taught my benighted soul to understand 
That there's a God — that there's a Saviour too: 
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. 
Some view our sable race with scornful eye — 
'^ Their color is a diabolic dye.'' 
Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain 
May be refined, and join th' angelic train, 

I have been deeply interested with the discovery 
that we have so many descendants in this church 
today of those who took part in the Revolutionary 
war. Time would fail me to mention all. Let me 
take the deacons of the church as a parable, with- 
holding all names. The great grandfather of one 
deacon, and the grandfather of the present treas- 
urer of the Old South Society, fought in that war 



. [52] 

and obtained a boimty coat for meritorious service; 
another deacon is connected by four lines of an- 
cestry with the fighting, and strange enough to 
say all four lines had representatives in the battle 
of Ticonderoga; two spent the winter with Wash- 
ington in Valley Forge and partook of the bounties 
that were then so abundant ! I have been interested 
to discover it was on the maternal side that the 
fighting representatives were mostly found. There 
is only one officer of the church who has not been 
able to find any of his ancestors who fought in the 
Revolution; he coupled this confession with the 
remark that he was very glad because they would 
have been obliged to fight against the ancestors of 
his minister, who were on the wrong side ! 

The blood of the Revolution is in the veins of the 
Old South Church today. It is a militant chiu-ch, full 
of the fire and spirit of '76. To know this I hope is an 
inspiration to good citizenship and good Christianity. 

Here a remark is in order respecting the restora- 
tion of the Old South Meetinghouse. For five 
years, from 1777 to 1782, the Old South congrega- 
tion met in King's Chapel. Let that always be 
remembered. King's Chapel took the Old South 
people in, made room for them when they had no 
place in which to gather and preserve their ecclesi- 
astical organization. Five years is a long time for 
one church to entertain another church as its guest. 
Bang's Chapel did this and off'ered to continue it 
longer if necessary. 



[53] 

After the war Boston was poor; the leading men 
had lost their wealth, their property had depre- 
ciated, they were in great straits; the repair of the 
Meetinghouse was a great burden, but it was done, 
and done by the people of the church. They ap- 
pealed to the town, that the Old South Meeting- 
house had so. magnificently served, but nobody in 
the town was able to do anything toward repairing 
the desecrated church. The will was not wanting, 
but the power was wanting; every one had enough 
to do to take care of his own special obligations. 

The Meetinghouse was at length repaired and 
on the Lord's day, March 2, 1788, the church re- 
tm"ned to its old ecclesiastical home, repeating 
doubtless to itself, "The ransomed of the Lord 
shall return and come to Zion, with songs and 
everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain 
joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee 
away." Here follows the anthem which was sung 
that day; the music was composed by William 
Selby, then organist at King's Chapel. How the 
anthem must have rolled throughout the renovated 
church, and still more what music it must have made 
in the happy hearts and greatened minds of those 
men and women who had survived seven years of 
Revolutionary war. 

Behold, God is my salvation, 

I will trust and not be afraid; 

For the Lord Jehovah is my strength and song. 

He also is become my salvation; 



[54] 

He hath raised up the tabernacle of David that is 

fallen; 
He hath closed up the breaches thereof, 
He hath raised up the ruins, 
He hath built it as in the days of old 
And caused his people to rejoice therein. 
Praise the Lord, call upon his name. 
Declare his doings among the nations. 
Make mention that his name is exalted, 
Sing unto the Lord for he hath done excellent things; 
This is known in all the earth. 
Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, 
For great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. 
Hallelujah! for the Lord Omnipotent reigneth! 



IV. The Church and the Civil War 



Wi 



E are still near the period of the Civil War, 
and the imagination of every patriotic man is 
touched by a thousand appeals. Decoration Day, 
with its thinned ranks of worn veterans, appeals 
to thought and feeling vividly and deeply. In 
every graveyard, in every hamlet throughout New 
England, throughout the whole loyal North, one 
will find the Stars and Stripes planted by a solitary, 
humble grave, here, there and yonder. Every 
village has it soldiers' monument, telling what the 
struggle meant, not only to the great cities, but 
to every centre of population in the North. One 
of the most affecting of these symbols is the corridor 



[55] 
of Memorial Hall, Cambridge. Pass through that 
corridor and read the names on those white tablets 
and realize what the Civil War meant in the sacri- 
fice of the best and bravest of that generation. 

This mode of approach deepens feeling, quickens 
thought and gives a more comprehensive sense of 
that burden of strife, alternate hope and despair 
which lay for four years upon the soul of a great 
people. The Civil War I regard as one of the great- 
est wars in all history. It was fought on moral 
grounds and for moral causes, and its triumph is 
an immense help to faith in the moral govern- 
ment of the world. Carlyle used to say that 
the French Revolution saved him from atheism to 
faith in a moral Deity, because there and then a 
century of lust and shame, robbery and contempt, 
lying and cruelty, burned itself out imder the 
government of the just God. 

The period to which we come in the history of our 
church is a period of division and searching of 
heart. Boston was divided between proslavery and 
antislavery. Phillips Brooks once told me that in 
the late forties, when the waves of opinion were 
running wild and high as if before hurricanes, he 
and his playmates used to crowd into the Boston 
Theatre in order to hiss the abolitionists. He said, 
"We did not know anything about the reason of our 
hissing, but enjoyed it. The police would appre- 
hend us and box our ears and throw us into the 
street; we waited for another chance to go in with 



C56] _ . 

a fresh crowd and hiss the abolitionists again!" 
Here is a sign of the tumult and confusion of 
opinion. 

This condition of things in the city reflected 
itself in the Old South ^congregation; proslavery 
and antislavery sat side by side; one man praising 
his minister when there was mention made of a 
black man in the sermon, and another saying, 
"Too much nigger in that discourse." This divi- 
sion of opinion in the city and in the church was 
reflected in the ministry. 

Dr. Blagden was from the South, he was pro- 
slavery; the institution seemed to him of divine 
origin, the Bible was in its favor. It was good for 
the black man to be in bondage and good for the 
white man to have him there. The institution of 
slavery was good! His junior coUeague, Dr. Man- 
ning, coming from New England, with a richer 
humanity, with a sense of the cruelty of barter and 
exchange in flesh and blood and the reduction of 
human life to the level of a chattel, was an anti- 
slavery man in every fibre of his being. These two 
men differed on the temperance question. Dr. 
Blagden said, "I am in favor of temperance, but 
what is temperance? It is the moderate or rational 
use of alcohol." "Every creature of God is good," 
was one of his favorite texts, and "Take a little 
wine for thy stomach's sake and thine infirmities." 
His coUeague, looking upon the havoc wrought 
by the use of alcohol, especiaUy among the poor, 



[57] 
could think of temperance only under the form of 
total abstinence. 

Here then were the divisions. It was as if an 
earthquake had gone before them, and men were 
walking and jumping across yawning chasms. They 
were high-minded men, and no two men then gJive. 
could have been brought together who were nobler 
in their purpose and spirit than Dr. Blagden and 
Dr. Manning. It is easy enough to be united when 
there are no great issues burning in the hearts of 
of the people, and setting children against their 
parents and parents against their children. It 
takes men of a different stamp to work together 
with high composure when the community and the 
church and their own minds are rent with vast 
antagonisms ! 

Fort Sumter was fired upon and compelled to 
surrender on the 12th of April, 1861. What took 
place? The two ministers stood on one platform, 
as Dr. Blagden said, absolutely one. The whole 
church stood together as one; all Boston was one 
man when the Flag had been fired upon. The first 
great scene in the Old South Church at this period 
was on the first of May, 1861, nineteen days after 
the government fort in the harbor of South Caro- 
lina had been taken by Confederate forces. As in 
Revolutionary days, so now, the patriots of Boston 
turned toward the Old South Meetinghouse. The 
standing committee erected a platform under the 
tower for the use of speakers and a vast concourse 



[58] 

of people surrounded the church. The chau'man 
of the standing committee, Mr. George Homer, 
presided. The United States flag was flung to the 
breeze from the tower of the church, amid the pro- 
foundest enthusiasm and emotion. Here are a 
few sentences from the remarks of Mr. Homer; 
his words show the feeling of the laymen of the day. 

"In the dark and stormy times of our Revolu- 
tionary history," Mr. Homer said, "it was within 
the consecrated walls of the Old South Chiu"ch that 
our patriotic fathers were accustomed to assemble 
and take counsel together. Here Warren and Han- 
cock and the Adamses and their associates met and 
poured out their protest against British oppression; 
here within a few feet of where we stand Benjamin 
Franklin was born. Let us then, in view of the 
memories of the past and in hope and faith of the 
future and ab9ve aU relying on the favour of heaven, 
reverently throw our national flag to the breeze and 
invoke upon it the blessing of Almighty God." 
Imagine the scene! Mr. Homer then caUed upon 
the assembly to join with Dr. Blagden in prayer. 
I quote a few sentences from that prayer: 

"Bless thy servant, the President of our Union, 
and those immediately connected with him in the 
administration of our government. Be with them 
in those solemn moments, when the lives and the 
happiness of multitudes may hang on their deci- 
sions. Render them firm and energetic in action. 
. . . Oh, Lord, if this question must be settled by 



[59] 
the shedding of blood, go with our hosts in action. 
Yet, if it be thy will, so guide the miads of our 
erring countrymen, that this issue may be avoided. 
But if thou hast otherwise determined, grant that 
we, who sustain the government and the laws of the 
country, may be united, and be blessed, and be 
made successful by thee." 

Then came an address by Dr. Manning, the 
jimior minister of the church. I quote a few sen- 
tences from this truly eloquent and thrilling ad- 
dress. The speaker was young, and youth is always 
prophetic; the new generation was speaking through 
him as it could not in the older man. 

"God's temple welcomes the star-spangled ban- 
ner today, — for that banner has ceased to be the 
sign of corrupt fellowship, or of subserviency to 
wrong, and has become the symbol of justice and 
loyalty to human rights. There floats the ensign 
of the free. We hail it with patriotic shouts, for it 
signals to us divine order and the brotherhood of 
men. Those stripes of crimson and pearl, and that 
constellation on its field of blue, are thrilling twenty 
millions of hearts while I speak. From the valleys 
of the Pine-tree State, from the homes of Stark and 
Allen, Putnam and Greene, from the mighty em- 
pires of the Middle States, from boimdless prairie 
and forest and mine they issue forth together with 
you of this free commonwealth, an innumerable and 
invincible host to bear our national emblem whither 
duty shall lead the way. All that beautifies and 



[6o] 
blesses American society asks to sit in the shadow 
of the dear old flag; only that which is hateful and 
destructive would drag it from the sky and rend 
and trample it." 

The apostrophe to the flag foHows: 

"We welcome thee today to thy natal spot, to 
the Puritan Church of which thou wert born. Flag 
of the free, float on forever in majesty and might, 
thou glorious ensign, symbol of liberty, guardian of 
order and law and a nation's pride, thou joy-speak- 
ing herald to the oppressed of aU lands! Within 
thy folds may no crime or dishonor lurk; palsied 
be the tongue that would defame thee and withered 
the hand that would tear thee from that lofty 
height* God go with thee in the day of battle and 
victory; make thy standard her abiding place." 

Dr. Manning's remarks were frequently inter- 
rupted by hearty applause and nine cheers were 
given for the speaker when he had concluded. Dr. 
Blagden rose and declared his stand, with absolute 
candor and impressive power: 

"We are here as one man today; what is more, 
we are united in eternal truth. For we meet to 
sustain just government. The powers that be are 
ordained of God. The magistrate beareth not the 
sword in vain. This truth is mighty and will pre- 
vail. The flag we have raised is an emblem of it 
and of a free government from which men cannot 
secede but by rebeUion, and where is the foe but 
falls before us with freedom's soil beneath our feet 



C6i] 

and freedom's banner streaming o'er us!" Nine 
cheers were given for Dr. Blagden. 

The next scene of interest in the Old South Meet- 
inghouse in this period was the turning of the 
church into a recruiting depot. During 1862 ca- 
lamity after calamity came to the Union arms; for 
the first time the magnitude of the struggle began 
to get into the minds and imaginations of the North. 
Abraham Lincoln had called for 3oo,ooo men to 
fight three years; he had issued another call for 
3oo,ooo men to enlist for nine months; to further 
this second movement the Standing Committee 
threw open the Old South Meetinghouse. Bands 
played, speeches were made, prayers were ofi'ered, 
and in the yard of the Old South Meetinghouse 
the 43d Massachusetts regiment was largely re- 
cruited. This regiment requested the Rev. J. M. 
Manning to go with them to the front as chaplain. 
Permission was given by the church and the society 
for him to go. He received his commission from 
Governor Andrew, and leaving a wife and four 
young children behind, in his thirty-eighth year, 
went out with his men to the front. 

About this time others went from the church. I 
have not been able to find a full list. There must 
have been more than I can name. Edward C. 
Johnson, treasurer of the Old South Society, went 
as first lieutenant of the A/ith Massachusetts, pro- 
moted to adjutant in the following May; George 
Blagden, oldest son of the senior minister and 



[62] 

Edward Bladgen, another son, served in the A5th; 
Thomas Blagden went into the Navy — three of 
the senior minister's sons entered the great struggle. 
Joseph Henry Thayer, an Old South boy, left his 
parish in Salem, and went as a chaplain to the 
front. Later members who went to the front were 
William E. Murdock, serving from the beginning to 
the end of the great struggle; Alpheus H. Hardy, 
first lieutenant in the 45th; Albert H. Spencer, 
and Colonel Bradley, one of the youngest men to 
enter the Army. He entered at the age of thirteen, 
served through to the end, and when the war was 
over he was only about seventeen years of age. 

When the 43d regiment was recruited, the junior 
minister of the church preached a sermon to the 
officers of the regiment. The church was crowded, 
as usual, and certain words to those who stayed at 
home are I think particularly impressive now. 

"Is it too much," he says, "for me to ask that 
the interest of this religious society may follow the 
regiment with which I go, that I may be able ever, 
should they be in need, to point out to them the 
substantial tokens of your affection and that the 
moral and religious counsel which I shall endeavor 
to give may be reinforced by an argument without 
which words are of little avail. Though few or 
none of them may be without ample resources of 
their own today, we cannot tell to what suffering 
they may be reduced by the chances of war, and I 
here commend unto you and pray you to remember 



[63] 
the sacredness of your obligation as to the defenders 
of your firesides, and ask you not only to carry 
them daily in the arms of your faith, but to follow 
them with all those other attentions which shall 
help to preserve and ennoble their manhood." 

You are aware that Dr. Manning contracted a 
fever in the service of his regiment and of his coun- 
try. He returned and was long a sufferer; so low 
did he sink that his death was reported in the papers. 
Slowly he came back to life and vigor and for many 
years thereafter served this church, but always 
with the germs of disease working in his body. Dr. 
Manning died from the effects of the War as surely 
as if a bullet had pierced his heart on the field. 
His death took place November 29, 1882. 

There are many tender thoughts connected with 
that time. A severe engagement had been fought 
in which the 44th regiment had borne its part, and 
the 45th; at the close of the day, in the dark, the 
chaplain makes his way over long distances and 
rough ways to iuquire ff the boys of his parish are 
among the living or among the dead. The sig- 
nificance of this story is here: these young men 
and their young minister took the church and put 
it in the heart of the great struggle; the church 
shed its blood with the rest of the country. 

The next scene is one of transcendent interest. 
All day on Sunday, from early morning to late at 
night, on the gth of April, the news had been pour- 
ing in, and bulletins were posted on the Merchant's 



[64] 

Exchange building that General Lee had surren- 
dered to General Grant, and that the war was over. 
You can imagine the crowds that stood in front of 
those bulletins; you can imagtae the shouts of joy 
and the doxologies they sung, the frantic expres- 
sions of emotion as they realized that the war was 
over, that the country was once more united. 

On the following day the citizens of Boston asked 
for the Old South Meetinghouse as a place of 
thanksgiving. The crowd filled the bmlding to its 
utmost capacity and surged round it, a sea of joy. 
Prayers were offered, speeches made and psalms 
sung; the church again was the mouthpiece and 
the symbol of the joy of the city and of the nation. 

One week later the terrible reverse came. Over 
the wires on Saturday the dreadful message ran 
that President Lincoln had died that morning. On 
Sunday, April i6, with the pulpit draped in black, 
to an awe-stricken and broken-hearted church and 
congregation, the junior minister preached his ser- 
mon on the death of the great leader. Curiously 
enough I came into possession of a book bearing on 
this Sunday long before I knew anything about the 
Old South Church, a book in which are gathered the 
sermons of all the prominent preachers of that date. 
Here are the names of the men who preached in 
Boston on that memorable and tremendous Sunday: 

Dr. Kirk, Dr. Bartol, Dr. Manning, Dr. Todd, 
Dr. Clarke, G. H. Hepworth, W. R. Nicholson, Mr. 
Hague, Dr. Webb, Dr. Neal, Rev. Henry Wilder 



[65] 
Foote of King's Chapel, F. D. Huntington, W. H. 
Cudworth, C. Robbins, W. S. Studley, R. EUis, 
S. K. Lothrop, Edward Everett Hale, A. A. Miner, 
James Reed, George Putnam, G. L. Chaney, A. L. 
Stone, J. D. Fulton; only one surviving. Rev. James 
Reed, the venerable and beloved Swedenborgian 
minister. 

That day of tumult, of heart-searching, of tragic 
grief, crowded all the churches; all the ministers 
spoke on one thing, all cried out to God for faith 
and hope. What a day! Dr. Manning's text and 
the opening words of his sermon follow: 

"And the Lord said unto him. This is the land 
which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto 
Jacob, saying, I will give it imto thy seed: I have 
caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt 
not go over thither. So Moses, the servant of the 
Lord, died there m the land of Moab, according to 
the word of the Lord." 

"* According to the word of the Lord.' Sweet 
announcement to a broken-hearted nation, today! 
'Abraham Lincoln died this morning, twenty-two 
minutes after seven o'clock.' That was the message 
which the wires, heavy laden with their tidings, 
sobbed forth yesterday in all our pleasant places. 
And we awoke from our troubled sleep this morn- 
ing, and lo! it was not a dream. * According to the 
word of the Lord.' 'Even so. Father, for so it 
seemed good in thy sight.' We look above all 
human agency. We recognize the will that never 



[66] 

errs, nor falters, and that worketh all things, in 
heaven and on earth after his own perfect counsel. 
"'So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there.' 
He had brought us through the 'great and terrible 
wilderness,' unto the borders of our goodly herit- 
age; but was himself forbidden to enter. How in- 
complete, how complete the dear life that has passed 

on! 

As I have read the records of this time, I must 
confess that I have been deeply moved. Every 
word, every utterance, every token of life is charged 
with profoundest feeling'. The great heart of the 
North was stirred, stirred morally, stirred religiously 
and moved toward God with imwonted power: 
Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! 

Thy God, in these distempered days, 

Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways. 
And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! 

Bow down in prayer and praise! 
No poorest in thy borders but may now 
Lift to the juster skies a mans enfranchised brow, 
Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, 

And letting thy set lips. 

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse. 
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare. 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it. 
Among the Nations bright beyond compare? 



[67] 
What were our lives without thee? 
What all our lives to save thee? 
We reck not what we gave thee; 
We will not dare to doubt thee, 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare! 



V. L\TER History 



I 



N the late sixties of the last century it became 
clear to many among the leaders of the Old South 
Church that the Meetinghouse on Milk and Wash- 
ington streets could no longer adequately serve 
the needs of a hving, gro>ying spiritual society. 
Unanimity, however, did not exist either among 
the members of the church or of the corporation. 
There were remonstrants against the attempt to 
move, and to erect another house of worship. These 
remonstrants were of three classes. There were the 
members of the church and the society who were 
deeply attached to the venerable and famous Meet- 
inghouse; in this they were fully justified. These 
persons loved this building more than the church, 
the fellowship of like-minded men and women in 
the service of the community; in this they were 
not justified. The majority loved the Meeting- 
house no less sincerely than the minority, but they 
loved the church more than they loved the building. 

A second class of remonstrants consisted of the 
ministers of Boston, — a group of them would per- 
haps be a more accurate description. These men 



[68] 
were friendly to the minority of the Old South 
people, unfriendly to the majority. They made a 
good deal of trouble for the majority leaders, but 
they did not count for much in the trial of 
strength. 

The third remonstrant was formidable, the public 
opinion against the right to move, created by a 
considerable number of prominent and influential 
citizens. To them the Meetinghouse was a monu- 
mental building; here they were clearly in the 
right. To them the church as a spiritual fellow- 
ship in the service of the city counted for little; 
here they were mistaken. 

The case was carried before the Legislature; it 
was heard before a single judge of the Supreme 
Court, and later before the full bench. In every 
trial of justice the Old South Society won; the liti- 
gation was long and costly, but the triumph for the 
society was complete. 

Dr. Manning, sole minister of the church from 
1872, when Dr. Blagden resigned, till 1882, was 
pained by the division of opinion in the society; 
he was pained by the absence of sympathy with 
the purpose of the church on the part of many of 
his brother ministers; beyond all he was pained by 
the alienation from his ministry of a large body of 
his fellow-citizens who had admired and supported 
him in his early ministry. He bore all this bravely, 
and before he died he was made supremely happy 
by seeing the church rescued from imminent death, 



[69] 
refoimded, and in sure possession of an indefinitely 
extended future of influence. 

There was one layman who appeared absolutely 
indispensable to the life of the church in this crisis, 
Samuel Johnson, Chairman of the Standing Com- 
mittee. Other notable laymen stood round him. 
Avery Plumer, fearless fighter for his convictions; 
Moses Merrill, wise, calm, steadfast; Alpheus 
Hardy, princely Boston merchant and influential 
citizen; Loring Lothrop and Frederick D. AUen, 
faithful and true; Samuel Hurd WaUey, friend of 
Daniel Webster, clear in mind and weighty in judg- 
ment, later chairman of the committee that super- 
intended the erection of our present House of 
Worship, whose personal and inherited love for the 
Old South made his laborious service a work of 
piety and delight; Deacon Charles A. Stoddard, the 
Old South saint of his time; and John L. Barry, 
forever loyal and militant. To these names must 
be added that of Linus M. Child, stout-hearted 
attorney for the society, and Charles A. Morss, 
mild in manner, just and resolute in spirit. 

Later other men appear in our records: Joseph 
H. Gray, keen financial servant of the society; 
Richard Hall Stearns, for many years a deacon and 
a prominent member; William B. Garritt whose 
conservative thought was accompanied by the 
deepest religious feeling; Alphonso S. Covel, one of 
the friendliest and most useful of men; Luther A. 
Wright, perhaps the most successful superintendent 



[70] 
the Bible School ever had; and the learned historian 
of the church, Hamilton A. Hill. These men repre- 
sent a later generation of members and servants of 
the Old South Church. 

In the greatest crisis in its life since it was 
founded, Samuel Johnson came forward, the indis- 
pensable friend of the society. He was then in his 
magnificent prime. No injustice could ruffle his 
temper, no opposition break or weaken his purpose. 
For four long, troubled years he lived mainly to 
serve this church, to defend its rights, to secure for 
it the command of its property, to establish it by 
law in freedom and security. He won his cause; 
he was, as the representative of the society, trium- 
phant everywhere; above all he so fought as to 
make no enemy; he so contended as to increase the 
public esteem in which he was held then and tiU his 
death in 1899 among all wise and good men. Since 
the Founders of the Chiuch there has been, in my 
judgment, no layman so important at a critical 
period of our history, or so nobly influential in suc- 
ceeding years. 

The Boston Gire, in November 1872, made wor- 
ship in the old Meetinghouse practicaUy impos- 
sible. Then it was, however, that the fight began 
in earnest. At one meeting of the Society a mem- 
ber rose and said that since the building was spared 
from the flames that had consumed the whole 
region round it, clearly it was the will of God that 
the church should continue to worship there. To 



[7X] 
this a veteran of the Civil War, then a young man, 
inquired with consuming logic, How about the 
saloon at the other end of Milk street? That, too, 
was spaired from the flames. Did Providence intend 
that both enterprises, the liquor trade and rehgion, 
should go on at the old sites? That young man 
was Edward C. Johnson, for the past twenty years 
treasurer of the Old South Society. 

The Old South Church was granted the right to 
move; the Old South Meetinghouse was preserved. 
The noble struggle had thus a wholly happy issue. 
Nothing remains today but the friendliest feeling in 
the Old South Church for the men and women who 
represent those who saved a monumental building, 
and in the Old South Meetinghouse Association, in 
which by rare com-tesy the present minister of the 
church is a member, for our fellowship and work. 
In this spirit we greet each other today. 

The Old South Church, in the noble words on the 
tablet in the front porch, was "preserved and blessed 
of God for more than two hundred years while wor- 
shipping on its original site, comer of Washington 
and Milk streets, whence it was removed to this 
building in 1876, amid constant proofs of His 
guidance and loving favor." The church has sur- 
vived because its members in each new generation, 
with clean hands, pure hearts, and wise heads, have 
loved it, served it, and set its good above and be- 
yond all private interests. No other force than 
that c£ui save it for the future. "The memory of 



the just is blessed"; the great company of just 
souls, men and women who are worthy of remem- 
brance; and the just memory of today by which 
they are held in everlasting remembrance. The 
whole great story fills the mind with the high mean- 
ing and the solemn beauty of life: 

. . . Life is not as idle ore. 
But iron dug from central gloom, ' 
And heated hot in burning fears. 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 
And batter d with the shocks of doom 
To shape and use. 



THE MINISTRY OF GEORGE A. GORDON 



HE paper which follows deals with Dr. Gordon's 
pastorate at the Old South Church from his installa- 
tion to the time of the publication of this volume. It 
was prepared by the Reverend Albert E. Dunning, 
D.D. — a member of the Church, at the request of the 
Church Committee. 



THE MINISTRY OF GEORGE A. GORDON 

INSTALLED APRIL 2, 1 884 

HISTORIANS have remarked that the end of 
a century and the beginning of the next are 
usually a period of greatest unrest. This is 
notably true of the last thirty-five years. Every 
realm of thought and action has expanded through 
storms — theology, education, politics, industry, 
arts, inventions. 

The local history of the Old South Church during 
this time of upheaval has been distinguished by 
two things; by inward harmony and by manifest 
divine guidance. The faith of its members is in- 
scribed on the outer walls of the new edifice, "Qui 
transtulit sustinet." As a prophecy it has been 
wonderfully fulfilled. 

The church is rarely fortunate in having one 
leader during all this period. Through him it has 
spoken the word of wisdom interpreting the pur- 
pose of God in each crisis. His confidence in the 
ideals and integrity of its members and their un- 
swerving confidence in him have made secure its 
assurance that through the strife and struggle of 
men and nations the will of God is being established. 
The sane optimism of the Old South Church is an 

75 



[76] 
unfailing source of its spiritual strength and its 
material progress. 

George Angier Gordon was born and bred in a 
typical Scottish Christian home, a farmer's son and 
himself a farmer in his boyhood. The life of his 
homeland throbs in his veins not less now than 
fifty years ago. It pulses in his sermons, through 
which flit pictures of sunsets on Scotland's purple 
mountains, reflected in her tarns, of flocks quietly 
feeding in her close cropped pastiu-es. The song of 
the skylark in the dawn, of the mavis at nightfall, 
the whistle of the blackbird in his thorny den at 
noon, and the reaper's song in the field of ripened 
wheat are undertones in his appeals. 

In a spirit of bold adventure, he found his way 
to this New World when he was eighteen years 
old, and earned his living as a working man at an 
iron moulder's bench in South Boston. He found 
room in his meagre luggage for the, hammer he had 
often thrown successfuUy in athletic contests. 

Fired by a passion to preach the Gospel he left 
the workshop, made his way through Bangor Theo- 
logical Seminary and was ordained pastor of a 
typical New England country church, in Temple, 
Maine. There he labored for a year with a devo- 
tion which after half a century is fragrant in the 
memories of the children of his people, and in the 
traditions of the generation following them. 

Under the pressure of an ever increasing thirst 
for knowledge he turned from his ministry for a 



[77] 
time and came to Harvard University seeking in- 
struction in Greek Literatm-e and in philosophy. He 
was allowed to take these two subjects as a special 
student. Two years of passionate and persistent 
pursuit of these studies so impressed his teachers 
that the Faculty of the University by unanimous 
vote took the unprecedented step of admitting him 
to the senior class without examination. Imme- 
diately on his graduation in 1881 he resumed the 
work of the ministry, as pastor of the Congrega- 
tional Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. 

During these years the way was being prepared 
for Mr. Gordon to enter on his life work. Dr. 
Manning, with the strong support of the leaders 
of the Old South Congregation, had guided them 
through storm-tossed waters in their migration from 
the old Meetinghouse on Washington Street to 
their new home on Copley Square. His ministry 
of twenty-five years was virile, evangelical and 
scholarly. He was militant for the truth as he 
understood it, yet not of a controversial spirit. He 
cherished an outlook on the future which was not 
merely optimistic, but inspired and inspiring. It 
is regarded by the church as a favoring providence 
that his spirit continues with it up to this time 
through the presence of Mrs. Manning, and that 
his oldest daughter perpetuates his ministry as 
Mistress of the Manse. 

Dr. Manning's health was permanently impaired 
by his military service during the Civil War. In- 



[78] 
creasing weakness compelled him to resign his 
active pastorate, taking effect on the twenty-fifth 
anniversary of his installation, in March 1882. He 
remained pastor emeritus till his death, Novem- 
ber 29 of that year. Immediately after, the Chm-ch 
and Society, by unanimous votes, instructed their 
committees to extend a call to Mr. Gordon. They 
had been looking in this direction almost from the 
time when Dr. Manning's active service ended. 
However, they met with an obstacle which probably 
was unexpected. They were commissioned to 
invite a yoimg minister to become the leader of the 
oldest Congregational Church in the largest city of 
New England. They regarded it as the strongest, 
and in its new location the most promising church 
in Boston, which was the headquarters of the de- 
nomination. But the young man was engaged in 
a prosperous and important work. He felt that it 
demanded his continued service. He was also re- 
luctant as yet to assume the greater responsibihty 
tendered to him. He promptly dechned the call. 
The Old South, however, knew the kind of man it 
wanted and had found him. It placed his letter 
of declination again in the hands of its Committees, 
with instructions to confer with him further, "with 
a view to bringing him to us as our pastor in the 
earliest possible time." A year later the call was 
renewed and accepted. 

The installation service, April 2, i88/i, has be- 
come a landmark in the history of our denomina- 



[79] 
tion. A theological controversy was dividing it 
into opposing parties. 

Committees in search of pastors were being 
warned by conservative leaders against selecting 
men "tainted with the higher criticism." The 
denomination was looked on with suspicion by 
strongly orthodox bodies which possessed ecclesi- 
astical authority to discipline their ministers. The 
Congregational polity, because of its greater freedom, 
was under fire. Harvard University was regarded 
by many with aversion as a formidable seat of 
learning untempered by piety. Andover Seminary 
was defending itself against a determined effort 
to oust its professors on charges of heresy. One or 
more of these had been regularly preaching at the 
Old South while it was without a pastor. The 
prosecutors in that case, in their zeal to protect 
this representative Congregational church against 
the inroads of Unitarianism and other heresies, 
were jealously inquisitive concerning the attitude 
of its new minister. None of them probably had 
the slightest ill feehng toward him personally or 
any positive evidence that he held theological be- 
liefs contrary to theirs. But they determined to 
test him by a thorough examination before con- 
senting to his installation. 

The Committees of the Church and Society knew 
the history of the Old South and its traditions. 
They were aware of the convictions of the elders 
who were pursuing hotfooted the Andover teachers 



[8o] 
of doctrines then repudiated by the majority oi 
Congregationahsts. They didn't intend to risi 
losing the minister of their choice through th( 
adverse action of a council. Mr. Gordon was 
formally received into the membership of the church 
Former pastors had on their reception consented 
to a confession of faith adopted by a council twc 
hundred years before. Mr. Gordon made his owr 
statement of belief, which was accepted unani- 
mously, and he was welcomed by the members a1 
a public reception as a brother beloved, to be thei] 
pastor. He was estabhshed in the parsonage. 

In the letter missive calling the Council the 
chm^ches were not invited to examine the candidate 
or to advise concerning his installation, but "tc 
participate in the proceedings." The invitatior 
was accepted by all the invited churches. It was 
however, received by the conservatives as a challenge 
The Council assembled in the afternoon in the midsi 
of a snow storm. Some of its frost seems to have 
entered the chapel with the pastors and delegates. 

The pastor elect offered credentials that coulc 
not be questioned. He brought the result of a dis 
missing Council at Greenwich giving him unqualifiec 
commendation. He read a comprehensive state 
ment of his religious belief. It contained no appareni 
note of controversy. It was conceived on a higl 
spiritual level. The candidate concluded by de 
daring himself a student of divine truth, and b> 
expressing the fervent hope that he would find ii 



C8i] 
his new surroundings spiritual companions in ex- 
ploring the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

A stenographic report has been preserved of the 
more than one hundred questions answered by the 
candidate in the examination which followed. They 
relate in the maui to the nature of the Godhead, 
the meaning of the Atonement, and the effect of the 
crucifixion of Christ as the Son upon God the Father 
in persuading him to be reconciled to sinful men. 

The protracted discussion of the CouncU in private 
session disarranged the plans which had been made 
to entertain at supper the pastors of neighboring 
churches. It postponed the time announced for 
the installation service. After some hoiu*s of sus- 
pense for those waiting outside the closed doors, 
the Council at last voted by a majority of about two 
thirds to proceed with the program for the evening. 
Two members who had accepted prominent parts 
withdrew. Their places were acceptably filled by 
others. 

However disturbing this experience was at the 
time, it resulted in an important gain to the de- 
nomination. The Old South Chiu*ch, by its loyalty 
to its minister, helped to convince the then dominant 
party of the unwisdom of attempting to make the 
tenets it defended tests of fellowship. It helped to 
ameliorate the disputes which culminated nearly 
ten years later in acknowledged freedom of the 
faith, at the meeting of the National Council in 
1892 and the American Board the following year. 



[82] 

Of the effect of this experience on the minister, 
he has spoken for himself. In a sermon celebrating 
the twenty-fifth anniversary of his installation he 
said, "I now give thanks for the outspoken opposi- 
tion to my views and purposes on the part of strong 
and brave men. I felt that I had come to hve among 
men who had convictions, who had the courage 
to express them and to stand by them when it was 
unpopular to do so." 

As an indication of the trend of theological think- 
ing in churches calling themselves orthodox this 
Coimcil had an exceptional interest. The members 
who took prominent part in it had been trained to 
defend the Calvinistic system. They were fixed 
in their belief that this was the only "plan of salva- 
tion" for lost souls. The questioning of any ele- 
ment of that logically constructed plan seemed to 
them a covert attack on the fortress of their faith. 
A favorite text of the leaders of New England Con- 
gregationalism was Ps. II :3, "If the foundations 
be destroyed what can the righteous do.^" A former 
pastor of Shawmut Church was said to have preached 
fourteen sermons from that text. Mr. Gordon 
frankly declared himself an inquirer into the things 
of God and men, and his purpose to press on eagerly 
and reverently in pursuit of truth. Already the 
spirit of inquiry had actively appeared. It seemed 
ready to examine what had been accepted as founda- 
tions of faith forever fixed. Their defenders could 
see no prospect, if these should be shaken, of a re- 



[83] 
building on bases that could not be shaken. And they 
feared the consequences of a re-exaniination of them. 
It is a satisfaction to record that most of these 
opponents hved long enough to enjoy fraternal 
relations with the minister of the Old South Church. 
One of the most active of them, after becoming ac- 
quainted with him, used to speak in terms of un- 
qualified admiration of his intellectual ability, his 
Christian character and his personal charm. 

On some subjects then much debated among 
ministers, Mr. Gordon frankly acknowledged that 
his conclusions were not fully formed. Concerning 
them he said, "I believe that the mental habit of 
suspense is rational, healthy, fruitful of much peace, 
and an indispensable safeguard against the waste of 
intellectual and spiritual power." However, a 
comparison of his published lectures and sermons 
with this statement to the Council indicates that 
the trend of his thinking had been already estab- 
lished by strenuous study and earnestly sought 
divine guidance. He had become convinced that 
he had a vision of a worthier interpretation of God, 
a truer idea of man as God's offspring, and a nobler 
conception of the worth of religion than the fathers 
of the church had known. The clearer revelation 
of what he then saw is outlined in two of his pro- 
ductions nearly a quarter of a century later. One 
of them is an article in the Harvard Theological 
Review of 1908, "The Collapse of the New England 
Theology." The other is the sermon he deUvered 



[84] 

as preacher for the International Congregational 
Council in Edinburgh the same year. He called it 
"The Republic of Souls." It is a noble exposition 
of the progressive revelation of truth. 

An illustration of his habit of thorough indepen- 
dent thinking through a subject occurred not long 
ago. When the controversy was at its climax over 
the question of a probation after death, a sermon of 
his was published by request entitled "A Vision of 
the Dead." In it he gave reasons for the hope that 
those who die without faith in Christ may not be 
forever beyond the pale of divine mercy. It had an 
extensive circulation. Twenty years later when it 
had been sometime out of print he was asked to 
revise it for a new edition. After examination he 
returned the copy for the press without alteration. 

Of the varied phases of Dr. Gordon's ministry 
perhaps the most conspicuous is his service to 
youth in schools and colleges. In i885, the year 
following his installation as pastor of the Old South, 
Harvard inaugurated a new experiment by making 
all religious exercises voluntary on the part of the 
students. It established a Board of five preachers 
of different denominations. The youngest of these 
was Dr. Gordon. It was only five years after the 
University had conferred on him his Bachelor's 
degree that it entrusted to him this large respon- 
sibility. He served on that Board for four years 
continuously and then after a period of release be- 
cause of other urgent claims he returned for a new 



[85] 
term of three years. Here began his friendship with 
Phillips Brooks, also a member of the original Board. 
Tliis intimacy continued till suspended by death. 
Twenty years after the Board was constituted, Pro- 
fessor Francis G. Peabody, Chairman of the Board, 
published a volume of addresses entitled "Mornings 
in the College Chapel." He dedicated it to Dr. Gor- 
don, in a beautiful poem which includes these lines: 

Still at your post you stand, high up in the lighthouse 

tower, 
Guarding the ivay of life, speaking the word of power; 
Resolute, tender, wise, free in the love of the truth. 
Tending the flame of the Christ, as it marks the channel 

of youth. 

Dr. Gordon in later years served three full terms 
on the Board of Overseers of the University. As 
president of the Alumni he recently delivered the 
Commencement Day Address. 

As a matter of course, many of the students 
found their way across the river from Cambridge 
to the Old South in Copley Square and to Truiity, 
where Phillips Brooks ministered. To their numbers 
Boston University, the Conservatory of Music and 
other institutions of the vicinity have contributed. 
This preponderance of young men and women in 
the congregations on Sunday morning would be an 
inspiration to any preacher. As years went by, the 
minister of the Old South was called on to give 
courses of lectures at Harvard, Yale, and other 



[86] 

universities, also baccalaureate sermons and occa- 
sional addresses, taxing his strength to the utmost. 
Henry Ward Beecher, when sought for as lecturer 
and preacher to all sorts of assemblies, used to say 
that whatever he could do to increase the streams 
of spiritual wealth flowing into the reservoir of 
Plymouth Church he gladly undertook; whatever 
streams carried such wealth away from it he avoided. 
This has been Dr. Gordon's policy. He has put 
first the welfare of his own people. And they have 
recognized it in a spirit of mutual appreciation. 
This relation he has expressed in the dedication of 
his latest voliune of midweek addresses, to "the 
people of the Old South Church and Congregation, 
in grateful acknowledgement of their unsurpassable 
loyalty and in deep, enduring affection." 

Notwithstanding the generous service he has 
rendered to the public, complaints used to be heard, 
especially in the earlier years of his ministry, that 
he confined himself too closely to his study and to 
his own chin*ch. He was not often seen in social 
assemblies or miscellaneous public meetings. But 
results have justified his determination to conserve 
his strength for systematic study. He has kept in 
touch with the literary life of our time by associa- 
tion with the famous Saturday Club, and a few 
other organizations which have afforded stimulus 
and recreation. He has not failed in personal 
ministry to members of his congregation in their 
times of need. And he has identified himself so 



[87] 
completely with the Old South Church that he is 
one with it. He knows not only its history and its 
traditions but its historic spirit. Through its 
records he is intimately acquainted with the minis- 
ters who have served it for the two hundred and 
fifty years of its existence. He knows the leading 
laymen in all its successive generations. He in- 
terprets its chief events by the policy it has con- 
sistently maintained through the entire period. 

The intellectual and spiritual life of the church is 
recorded in the volumes which its minister has 
issued at intervals of from two to four years dur- 
ing his pastorate. Looking back over the two 
centuries and a half one may see that the church 
has received some distinctive gift from each of its 
sixteen ministers. It appears to us in studying this 
history that in certain directions the present ministry 
is intellectually and spiritually the most fruitful 
of them all. Dr. Gordon's literary output, in the 
extent and variety of its themes, when compared 
with the Bibliography in Mr. Hill's history of the 
Old South, surpasses that of any of his predecessors. 
Each of the principal ten volumes which bear his 
name has a definite purpose, and is the fruit of 
widely extended but carefully chosen courses of 
reading. As an example, the Lowell Institute 
Lectures, "The New Epoch for Faith," aim to 
appraise, for the religious view of the world, the 
value of the nineteenth century. For this purpose, 
he says, he has read "chiefly those great books that 



C 88] 
constitute the watershed of the century's opinion 
and feeling." The lectures give evidence of thorough 
study of such historians and statesmen as Carlyle, 
Gladstone, Disraeli, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Web- 
ster, Abraham Lincoln. His week-end addresses, 
*' Aspect of the Infinite Mystery," are rich in re- 
flections on the great philosophers, such as Socrates, 
Plato, Aristotle, Paul, Kant, Spencer and Emerson, 
and the poets such as Homer, the Hebrew Psalmists, 
Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, Tennyson, 
Browning, and Whittier. More than seventy authors 
are mentioned in this volume. 

One charm of Dr. Gordon's preaching is his inter- 
preting the thoughts of great thinkers of all the 
ages for the average busy men and women, express- 
ing their aspirations and ideals more clearly than 
they had thought them out for themselves. 

Frequently the lecture room has been crowded 
with young men and women students, business and 
professional men, toilers by hand and brain, who 
have heard their varied experiences expressed in 
language which dignified their daily lives and in- 
terpreted for them the human and divine sym- 
pathy supremely revealed in the great strong Christ, 
Redeemer of mankind. These courses of midweek 
lectures, represented by this latest volume, were 
begun several years ago when the traditional prayer 
meeting had failed to bring together the families 
of the congregation scattered through suburban 
districts. They have well rewarded the labor in 



[89] 
preparation which the minister has bestowed on 
them. This midwinter course has become a recog- 
nized rehgious and Hterary institution of the city. 
It is there that the pastor is at home with his own 
church family and friends. There he speaks of his 
personal experience, with autobiographic glimpses, 
discourses of his favorite authors, and allows ex- 
pression to his sense of humor. The lecture method 
of the midweek service is a return to the estabhshed 
custom of the church in its earlier years. 

During these thirty-five years our democratic sys- 
tem of government has been severely tested. Its prin- 
ciples have been clearly set forth to the Old South 
congregation, and they have been loyally adopted. 
The issues of the world war which began five years 
ago were plainly outlined. The imperative duty of 
conquering Prussian militarism was proclaimed from 
the beginning. With hardly an exception the mem- 
bers of the congregation were busily working to fight 
the enemies of liberty, on the field, in camps, hospi- 
tals, centres of rest and recreation for soldiers and 
sailors, and in their homes. The volume of patriotic 
addresses, "The Appeal to the Nation," pubhshed 
last year attests the strength and fervor of loyalty 
to our American Union which has continued un- 
abated in this church from its earliest days. 

The associate ministers of the Old South have 
contributed their full share to its prosperity, in 
their preaching and manifold pastoral labors. Rever- 
end Dr. Allen E. Cross filled this office for ten years. 



C 90 ] 

Reverend Willis H. Butler has just completed a 
ministry of seven years. They are now pastors 
of important New England churches which are 
thus linked more closely with their older sister, the 
Old South. Without a break in the service, Rev- 
erend Archibald Black, during the last five years 
the pastor of South Church, Concord, N. H., was 
welcomed as associate minister. 

A long list might be made of men and women who 
have upheld the honorable position of the church 
in the community during these thirty-five years. 
They have been influential in professional and 
business life, public officials of the city, state and 
nation, administrators in educational and benevo- 
lent enterprises. Since it is beyond the scope of 
this article to chronicle their varied services, a 
mention of one may stand as representative of 
them all. No name is more tenderly cherished when 
the recent history of our church is being considered 
than that of Samuel Johnson. A prosperous mer- 
chant, giving generously of his time and thought, 
as well as his money, to enterprises for promoting the 
public welfare, the Old South Church had a place 
in his affection second to no other. He identified 
with it his family and his closest friends. The fine 
hospitality of his home was consecrated to its 
service. He devoted himself to making it an influen- 
tial factor in the missionary work of the denomina- 
tion at home and in foreign lands. He was a lead- 
ing spirit in all its interests for half a century, so 



wise, so capable, so generous in his sympathies that 
his associates loved him as well as trusted his leader- 
ship. He seemed to have the Church in vision 
through the seven generations of its past, and he 
looked to the coming generations with faith as strong 
as his confidence was assured in those who had gone. 
In that spirit he regarded the members with whom 
he was associated. They represented to him the hon- 
orable character they inherited from the church of 
earlier times, and the promise of its usefulness for 
generations to come. Like many other families 
whose names are revered among us, he has left as 
his heritage his children and his children's children 
to perpetuate his service in the Old South Church. 

This continuity of family life, which has been 
such a som*ce of strength to it for two hundred and 
fifty years, must be maintained loyally as far as 
is possible. It is noteworthy that only one change, 
and that caused by removal from the city, has 
occurred for the last decade in the Board of six 
deacons. Other important trusts connected with 
the various ministries of the Society, the distri- 
bution of its funds and the direction of its affairs 
have been faithfully administered by those whose 
many obligations were not allowed to interfere 
with the claims of their church. 

Of the ministries of the Church in its local field 
only barest mention can be made. Its annual gifts 
to the Boston City Missionary Society have always 
led all the other churches, and its successive preisi- 



C 92] 

dents have been members of the Old South. Its 
own local mission, Hope Chapel, enlisted many of 
its members as teachers in its weekday and Smiday 
services till changes in the neighborhood made its 
continuance no longer necessary. 

While the Bible School of the Old South has not 
been large since its congregation has chiefly re- 
moved from the immediate neighborhood to subur- 
ban homes, it maintains a notably successful 
children's school during the morning hour of public 
worship, and a flourishing Bible Class at noon, 
conducted on modern educational ideas. There are 
also attractive classes for women, young men and 
young women, with experienced teachers. Dr. 
Gordon has often and earnestly impressed on the 
people the importance of the study of the Bible. 
The Old South Men's Club and the Women's Sew- 
ing Circle are valued and prosperous organizations. 

The church has always been an important factor 
in the religious and civic life of the community and 
the Commonwealth, and probably never more than 
during the present pastorate. The Y. M. C. A., the 
Y. W. C. A., and other institutions for the public 
welfare have found in the Old South not only a 
reservoir of financial help but a place where the 
ablest men and women could be enlisted for service. 
At the celebration last May of its two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary, the Governor of the State and 
the Mayor of the City testified to its influence for 
good in public affairs. 



C 93] 

The members of om* church, individually and 
collectively, have a precious heritage, a royal 
privilege, and a great responsibility. It has been 
preserved in increasing strength through the love 
and labors of successive generations. It offers 
rewards in Christian fellowship, religious instruc- 
tion and spiritual life as great as its members will 
receive. It includes all ages and all classes. Many 
are members of families whose names have been on 
its rolls for half a century, some for a much longer 
period. Some are students whose association with 
it is necessarily short. A larger proportion are 
wage earners than is supposed by outsiders. The 
inheritance, the privilege and the responsibility 
belong alike to all according to the measure of their 
activities. By their presence at its services, their 
share in its ministries, their prayerful interest in 
the welfare of its members and their loyal guardian- 
ship of its honor, each adds to its usefulness and its 
excellence. Every worthy member of the Old South 
Church is able to say, "Lord, I love the habitation 
of thy house, and the place where thine honor 
dwelleth." 

This is in outline the history of our church during 
the thirty-five years of Dr. Gordon's ministry to 
the present time. Though the excitement and 
turmoil throughout the world continues, the minister 
and his co-workers look forward serenely to years of 
still greater opportunities and more fruitful service. 



[94] 

Dr. Gordon's Hymn "Years and Aspirations/' 
written on the occasion of the twenty -fifth anniver- 
sary of his installation, may well find a place at the 
conclusion of this sketch. 

LEAD me. Lord, through all my days. 
In Thy great and wondrous ways. 
Lift my heart to grander hours. 
Hold me with Thy heavenly powers. 

Of the Past may I still keep 
Things divine both high and deep. 
Morning light and evening glow 
That have ever blessed me so. 

Memories that ever shine ; 
Friends unseen but friends still mine ; 
Service sweet in high reward ; 
Spirits blest in dear regard. 

Tender sympathies and tears, 

Precious store of noble years ; ' 

Visions wide on pathways wild. 

Chastened thought again a child! 

Trust in Thee that surer grows ; 
Human love that fears no foes ; 
Faith that to thy heart belong. 
Worlds now lost in woe and wrong. 

Show me. Lord, Thy word of grace — - 
Christ, Thy glory in his face ; 
That I through my fleeting hour. 
Serve Thy kingdom in Thy power. 



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